A Bajan man on Sunday confessed to killing his Guyanese wife and burying her body in their backyard, a week after she was reported missing.
Early yesterday morning, the man of Mount Standfast, St James, took Barbados police to the “well” where he had buried the woman. Bibi Swahbirene Farzana Ali, 33, was found in a sealed septic tank by police yesterday some time around 6am when her husband led them to her grave. The “well” she was sealed in is what is called a septic tank here in Guyana, Stabroek News was told by Ali’s sister.
Ali is suspected to have been murdered by the man, her husband of three years, on Sunday, August 15. According to Ali’s sister, Zarfana Bacchus, Ali and the man were going through a divorce. “It seems last Sunday night it happen. She didn’t make it to work Monday,” Bacchus added. After Ali did not show up at work, her friends reported her missing. Bacchus said that when police spoke to the man he had told them that Ali had a habit of disappearing for days and not informing him.
Last Friday, she said, the police called the man into the station and took him to the St James house. They searched the house for two days she added and nothing was found to be amiss. Bacchus said she learnt that the house had a basement and called her aunt in Barbados to inform her. The police were then informed too.
It was not until Sunday passed that the man confessed to the murder of his wife and led the police to where he hid her body, Bacchus said.
According to Bacchus, her sister had endured years of abuse at the hands of her husband shortly after they got married. Ali and the man were married one month after meeting each other, according to her sister. They were introduced by a mutual friend and in March of 2008 Ali travelled to Barbados to meet the man, who paid for her to make the trip. In April of 2008, they married.
It was after Ali moved to Barbados to live with her husband that the beatings start. “She always call here sometimes and everybody telling her this man beating you up so bad why don’t you come home,” Bacchus shared with this newspaper last night.
Ali, she said, worked as a nurse’s aide after taking nursing classes in Barbados. Bacchus feared that her sister was killed because of her outgoing personality. “She like hanging out with friends. She’s always the kind of person to say something happen, [and] that’s how we know what was happening.”
Bacchus said that sometimes her sister would call and say how she was being starved. The house she lived in with her husband was said to have been without electricity and running water and Ali would tell them of how she was beaten by the man. One time she even told them of how she was beaten with a baseball bat, Bacchus stated.
She suspects that it was the same baseball bat that was used to kill her sister. Bacchus said that when the man confessed to the murder, “he said that he beat her and hit her with the baseball bat behind the neck. He said that he broke her neck.”
However, Ali’s family believes that more than that was done to her. “My aunt (who lives in Barbados) telling me that she (Ali) had a cut on her neck and a dent in the head,” Bacchus said. Ali was also said to have been naked when she was found.
Meanwhile, a post mortem is expected to be done today.
The woman’s family here is upset over the way the matter is being reported in the Barbados media. According to Bacchus, her aunt in Barbados said that reports in the media are suggesting that Ali committed suicide. “How can she cast herself in with cement then?” an upset Bacchus questioned.
Ali leaves behind two children, ages 15 and 16 years, who reside here in Guyana, “She was trying to save to come back to Guyana and do something,” Bacchus said.
